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Tuesday, June 6, 2017

The 3 T's for Launching Your Book

So you’ve written your book. You’ve poured your heart and soul into it. You’ve had it professionally edited it. You have a beautiful cover. You have had it formatted and you’ve uploaded to your favorite publisher. Now, it’s time to plan your Book Launch. The sweat beads up on your forehead, your hands shake, and your mouth goes dry. Panic sets in, right?! What is a little introverted writer supposed to do now?

I recently launched my third children’s book, Gloria and the Unicorn, on May 13, 2017. Each time that I’ve done a book launch, I’ve done it a little differently. Here’s some things that I’ve learned.

Here are my 3 T’s to launching your book…

1.TRIBE
You’ve probably heard this term before or if not, you have now. It’s all about your tribe which are the people that love you and support you and your work. You may not have many when you first start out. It may just be your Mom and maybe your sister or brother or spouse, but that’s okay. Start where you can start.

Ask these people to promote you to whomever they talk to—if they are on social media, they can share and talk about you and your book on all their accounts and channels. If they aren’t, they can talk to the grocery store clerk, the bank clerk, and their friends. You might even want to pay a PA/VA to help you promote and build excitement.

Join every group you can on Facebook and promote there, although only to 5 or 6 groups/day otherwise you’ll be thrown into Facebook jail. Nobody wants that!

Spreading the word and getting people excited about you is key! I believe it’s important to start local. So, tell everyone you know as well in person and on your own social media.

You build your tribe by asking people to support you. You won’t have a tribe, if you don’t ask. So, this is an important part of building your tribe.

Once you’ve done a book launch and have had people purchase your book, your tribe will grow and next time, it’ll be even bigger.

2.TIME
No doubt once you set a release date, the universe conspires to create chaos for that particular date to actually work out for you. I jest, but things happen as you head towards the deadline of a release date and so you have to build in time in order to handle these.

The first launch I did was for A Turtle’s Magical Adventure, I had watched a webinar and it told me to ask people to share what I post on Facebook. I had 4 sweet friends that I asked and bless their hearts, they never did share anything I posted. Go figure! This time, I didn’t encumber my friends, I paid two VA’s.

I was barreling towards the release date when someone said they had read my book. Whoops! No, they hadn’t because it wasn’t out yet. You guessed it, there was another book with a very similar name (it was originally called Tad, The Turtle). I knew this wasn’t good and I should have done my research so now I had to come up with another name and FAST! I did and changed it but forgot to change the book name on the back cover write up. Whoops! I didn’t realize that until after I had already order 50 books.

This time with my unicorn book, I was 2 weeks out from my launch date when a reviewer found some grammatical errors in the manuscript. I about gagged! I had paid a professional editor and everything. I quickly worked with my book formatter to get these fixed without having to re-format the whole book and we got it uploaded in time. You talk about stress!

Anyway, I would suggest giving yourself 6-8 weeks lead time for the launch of your book because trust me, things come up and you want to fix them BEFORE you release your book to the world.

3.TABLE
By table, I mean keep a list. It may be an excel spreadsheet or a paper and pencil list (that’s me, I’m old school). It’s really important to stay organized because there are a lot of moving parts. It’s almost like planning a wedding. Well, it’s almost as meaningful anyway. Ha!

Truthfully though, there are different aspects to launching a book and you want to have everything you need to get done in one place with “suggested” deadlines so that you stay on track.

For instance, I started out 8 weeks in advance. I had my VA make some graphics and got started promoting on Facebook and Twitter. I also had her make a Book Trailer and got that uploaded to YouTube and Good reads.

Then, I had her create bookmarks and uploaded to my favorite printing company. Guess what? I have yet to get those in the mail!! See what I mean?

Lastly, I like to have my book made into an Audiobook. You have to upload it and listen to auditions. This takes a while. I wanted my Audiobook to be available on the same day as the paperback and Ebook but the lady I chose from all the auditions was clearly well-liked by others so she was backed up. I settled for whenever she could get it done because I really wanted her to do it.

In conclusion, do your very best in all of these areas and your book launch will be successful! Ask people to be part of your tribe. Give yourself some room for unanticipated mistakes and issues to pop up along the way. Don’t panic (okay, try not to panic) if something goes wrong. Work through the problem and it will be fine. Follow your list as closely to your deadlines as possible. Then, take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back. You birthed a book into the world!

Wanda Luthman has her Masters of Arts in both Mental Health Counseling and Guidance Counseling from Rollins College located in beautiful Winter Park, Florida. She has worked as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Adjunct Professor, and Hospice Counselor for teens. She’s currently a Guidance Counselor at a local High School. She has self-published 4 children’s books (The Lilac Princess, A Turtle’s Magical Adventure, Gloria and the Unicorn, and Little Birdie). She belongs to the National Pen Women Organization in Cape Canaveral; the Florida’s Writers Association; Space Coast Authors; and Brevard Authors Forum. She presently resides in Brevard County Florida with her husband of 22 years and 2 dogs. Her daughter is away at college, like Little Birdie, she has left the nest. To download a free ebook, visit Wanda Luthman’s website at www.wandaluthmanwordpress.com and follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wluthman.